Reflections, commentaries, critiques and ideas from 40 years experience in the fields of Community Development, Community Education and Social Justice. Useful tools and techniques that I have learnt also added occassionally.

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The name of this blog, Rainbow Juice, is intentional.The rainbow signifies unity from diversity. It is holistic. The arch suggests the idea of looking at the over-arching concepts: the big picture. To create a rainbow requires air, fire (the sun) and water (raindrops) and us to see it from the earth.Juice suggests an extract; hence rainbow juice is extracting the elements from the rainbow, translating them and making them accessible to us. Juice also refreshes us and here it symbolises our nutritional quest for understanding, compassion and enlightenment.

Wednesday, 1 June 2016

The Dream (or Nightmare) of Control

How many of us desire control? It may be self-control. It may be control of
a small fortune. Perhaps even a desire to control an empire. Whatever form of
control we desire it often turns out to be just a dream. Our control is limited, yet
we often think it is more.

At an individual level we notice that feelings and emotions arise. We have
no control over them. But we get told to “get your emotions under control” or
“why don’t you control your anger?” Growing up, boys may encounter the
admonishment of “boys don’t cry” – implying that the emotions that gave rise to
the tears should be kept in check.

The problem is not that emotions arise or do not arise, it is how we respond
to them. If we respond by grasping onto them then an emotion like anger can
become a desire to lash out. Grasping anger is seen everywhere, from bullying
to domestic violence, from war to terrorism. Grasping at sadness can lead to a
“poor me” or a victim mentality.

The opposite of grasping is aversion. Pushing against anger for example can
lead us into fearing our anger. In that fear we bottle our anger up inside us.
Fearing it, we may become timid, or overly stoic. But we haven’t controlled it
at all. Its still there – hidden, for the time being, but not controlled.

The desire and attempt to control emotion is a dream. We do, however, have
some control over our actions in response to emotion. We do not have to resort
to violence because of our anger. The Buddhist practice of mindfulness is
especially helpful when it comes to working on our emotions. Mindfulness
suggests that we notice our emotions, name them, and then just let them pass
by. They will, like everything, pass by.

Having control over our actions though is limited to just that. We do not
have control over the outcome of our actions, except for those outcomes that
exist at that specific moment. The desire to control outcomes is another dream
– an unattainable dream. Think about it. Pick an outcome, even a simple one
like going to the shop to buy an ice-cream. It seems that you should be able to
have complete control over that outcome doesn’t it? But, the world is a lot
more complex than that. Maybe you arrive at the shop and find that the
ice-cream has run out, or you left your wallet behind and have no money to
pay. Perhaps you don’t even get to the shop. A car runs into you as you step
off the pavement and you end up in hospital. Or you meet a friend on the way
and decide to go to a cafe for a coffee together. We just never know. Control
is only a dream.

But when it comes to our collective selves - our neighbourhoods, nations and
our global community – the dream of control is further from reality. Indeed, we
may have taken our desire for control so far that the dream has become a
nightmare.

Western societies have been trying to control nature and other societies for
centuries. In doing so we unleashed the nightmare of nuclear weapons. There are many examples of this. Just three will do. We have
deforested so much of the planet that many species live with the nightmare of
loss of habitat. We have tried to control our urban environment so much that we
now live with the nightmare of increasing depression, isolation and anger issues
(e.g. road rage, domestic violence).

All because we think that we can control emotions and outcomes. So, if we
cannot control emotions nor outcomes, what can we learn?

From realising we cannot control emotions we learn to let go.

From realising we cannot control outcomes we learn to live in the present,
the now.

From learning to let go and to living in the present, we discover
contentment.

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About Me

I have almost 40 years experience working (paid and unpaid, government and non-government) in community development/education and social justice fields. I have continued to keep myself abreast of philosophies and theories in these and related fields. This blogsite will offer ideas, thoughts, reflections on these fields as well as giving some tools and techniques. I don't pretend that these will be original but I do hope that they will be able to translate some of these diverse ideas into coherent forms accessible to workers in the areas.